Minister welcomes signing of National Postcode System contract

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Dublin, 27 January
2014

The
Minister of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Pat Rabbitte, TD,
today announced the formal signing of the contract for the Postcode Management
Licence Holder (PMLH) with Capita Ireland.

The ten-year contract signed with Capita,
supported by BearingPoint and Autoaddress, provides for the design, encoding and
roll-out of a national postcode due to be launched in quarter one of 2015. It
will be a world-first design that uses a postcode as a unique identifier for
each and every address in Ireland.

Speaking at today’s announcement, Minister
Rabbitte said:

“A publicly-owned postcode system is a key piece
of modern national infrastructure, and ours will be the first in the world to be
unique to each individual address. It will bring significant benefits to the
public, business and government. I’m very pleased to announce the signing of the
contract with Capita who will develop and operate the next generation postcode
system for the State. I look forward to the public starting to use postcodes,
which we expect to be in the first half of 2015.”

“Capita is delighted to be working with the
Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources on the implementation
of this unique postcode system for Ireland. We recognise that this is an
important project that will bring many benefits to the public and business.”

The national postcode system will use a
7-character code in an alpha numeric format. Existing Dublin postal districts
will be retained.

The new delivery postcode will provide benefits
for householders, businesses and state bodies.

Over 35% of households in Ireland currently don’t
have a unique name or number in their address resulting in problems for delivery
of services and goods. Parcel and mail deliveries from An Post and other
delivery/logistics companies will be able to use the new postcode system to
quickly identify the location of a single house set in the countryside or an
apartment in a newly-developed multi-storey.

Emergency services will also benefit according to
Martin Dunne, Director of the National Ambulance Service, “The implementation of
postcodes for every premises in Ireland represents an unprecedented opportunity
for the National Ambulance Service to ensure fast and accurate location of
incidents, resulting in the best possible response for our patients and service
users,” he said.

State planning and development of health,
education, transport, social and amenity services, etc., will also be able to
use the new postcode system. The Minister for Health, Dr James Reilly T.D.,
said:

“I look forward to very significant benefits for
the health sector from the postcode system. I can see immediately that it will
be of great benefit to emergency dispatch as well as delivering more routine
community services in locating peoples’ homes. I can also see that postcodes
will bring a range of other benefits in collecting accurate address information,
in epidemiology and in overall management of the health services, all leading to
safer and more cost effective care.”

Public service customers will benefit too with
postcodes being added to address databases to improve service delivery.

Briefings and engagement with large database
holders from utilities, business and commercial state bodies are planned for the
coming weeks. Meetings with other stakeholder or sectoral representative
organisations are also being planned to allow for IT systems and software
updates accepting the new code.

IBEC said “The postcode will be strategic
addition to our national infrastructure. Having such a unique identifier can
reduce costs for businesses through supply-chain and administrative savings.
This will benefit not only retailers but also consumers through enabling better
use of online services and home delivery. The introduction of postcodes has the
potential to see new businesses being created as a result, offering new services
or disruptive technologies based on the “big data” it will provide”. ENDS

Notes to Editor

Each address and its code will be stored in a
central Postcode Address Database (PAD). Access to the geo-coordinates
associated with this code will allow quick mapping of the code’s location on a
variety of technology platforms and devices including computers, tablets, mobile
phones, in-car satnavs, and other mapping software systems. A publicly available
website will give the public free access to look up postcodes for addresses
quickly and easily.

An information website will be set up by the
Postcode Management Licence Holder over the coming months to answer Frequently
Asked Questions, provide further information around code design, promote the
uses and benefits of the national postcode, and help businesses to plan for the
new system.

Timeline Information

December 2013, the PMLH began a programme of engagment and detailed briefing
seminars with various public bodies.

Briefings in January/February with commercial state bodies. as well as
private sector utilities and service companies.

Further information on the Postcode design will be made available later this
year. Work on government databases to enable them to receive postcodes will get
underway.

Later in the year, an information campaign aimed at SMEs and other
businesses will help organisations to prepare for the launch date.

Early in 2015, a public information campaign will commence. Householders and
businesses will receive an individual mailing with their own postcode at that
point.

Press Release Documents

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